public, there, gentlemen, we, the
liberal party, have no friendship and no tolerance to expect.
Above all these, and behind all these, there is something greater
than these--there is the nation itself. This great trial is now
proceeding before the nation. The nation is a power hard to rouse,
but when roused, harder still and more hopeless to resist.... I
figure to myself those who have constituted the majority of the
late House of Commons as the persons arraigned, and the
constituencies of the country as those who are called together in
the solemn order of the constitution to hear the evidence, and to
pronounce the verdict. That evidence has been pretty largely
given. That verdict we await. We have none of the forms of a
judicial trial. There are no peers in Westminster Hall, there are
no judges on the woolsack; but if we concentrate our minds upon
the truth of the case as apart from its mere exterior, it is a
grander and a more august spectacle than was ever exhibited either
in Westminster Hall or in the House of Lords. For a nation, called
to undertake a great and responsible duty,--a duty which is to
tell, as we are informed from high authority, on the peace of
Europe and on the destinies of England,--has found its interests
mismanaged, its honour tarnished, and its strength burdened and
weakened by needless, mischievous, unauthorised, and unprofitable
engagements, and it has resolved that this state of things shall
cease, and that right and justice shall be done.(362)

(M197) Mr. Gladstone was already member for Leeds. So far back as the
March of 1878 Sir James Kitson had written to ask him to become a
candidate for the great city of the West Siding, but Mr. Gladstone
declined the proposal. Then a deputation came to him in Harley Street, and
he made them a speech on the Eastern question, but avoided any reference
to the subject which they had come to handle. The stout Yorkshiremen were
not to be baffled, and Mr. Gladstone, nominated without action of his own,
was now returned by the unprecedented vote of 24,622.(363) He was right in
calling the Leeds election "one of the most conspicuous and imposing
victories ever won for the liberal cause."(364) Still public interest was
concentrated upon Midlothian, and the might with which he prevailed over
men's minds there, was admitted by his foes to be the most impressive
tribute ev